Practice Management

Professionalism: Time to redefine it?

By Dan Hull

Professionalism? What does it really mean?

So what about "professionalism". Is professionalism a vestige of an insular and ancient pageantry Western lawyers still engage in to feel special in an increasingly commoditized profession? Or does it have some utility?

Maybe the answer is both. But let's at least look at it freshly, and like people living in at least in the 18th century.

On closer inspection, real professionalism--generally thought of as a combination of day-to-day practical courtesies extended to fellow lawyers, and a noble tone in all that is said and done--may have little or nothing to with lawyers, and with benefiting lawyers. And have everything to do with clients, and benefiting clients instead.

Maybe the entire subject as traditionally regarded is either outdated, for lack of a better word, misplaced.

Shouldn't professionalism be 99% about clients? Some questions:

(1) What is Professionalism in the field of law, anyway?

(2) When does it help the doing of work?

(3) Was it ever intended to benefit anyone but the client? (Sometimes, professionalism certainly benefits lawyers in a way that can greatly benefit, even if indirectly, their clients.)

Full post as published by What About Clients? on October 17, 2010 (boomark / email).